Daphne Hearn, b’87, entered the FBI as a 27-year-old Kansas transplant. While training in Quantico, Va., she set her sights on the West Coast, but in 1991 she was placed in Buffalo, N.Y., to begin her career in organized crime investigation, for which she had no prior experience. Two decades later, after watching the world change and the bureau change with it, she confidently began a new challenge as special agent in charge of counterintelligence/cyber/administrative division in Los Angeles.

Since her first position in Buffalo, several promotions have moved Hearn around the country. As a new expert in organized crime investigation, she held positions in Chicago and FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was at headquarters that she witnessed the tragedy on September 11, 2011. “We set up a command post,” she recalls. “I think I stayed there for three days straight before I went home. That event changed the way the bureau does business forever.”

As the FBI shifted its focus from criminal investigation to counterterrorism, Hearn entered the world of cybercrime investigation with a job that took her back to her hometown, Kansas City. “That move was easy because I knew the area and had friends there,” she says. “As I get older, I look less forward to moving to places I’ve never been. Hearn has since moved from her job as special agent in charge in Los Angeles to special agent in charge in San Diego.

–Adapted from story in Kansas Alumni magazine, No. 1, 2011, written by Whitney Eriksen